Samsung puts the new Exynos 5 Octa 5420 SoC up against a Nexus 10 at SIGGRAPH 2013

@ 2013/07/24

In case you were already snoozin' when Samsung made its announcement late yesterday, the company is here at SIGGRAPH 2013 eager to show off the muscle behind its new chip. Before the exhibitions start officially, we had a chance to nab a look at a reference tablet running the Exynos 5 Octa 5420 SoC alongside ARM's Mali T-628 silicon packing six cores. For comparison purposes, the prototype unit was matched against a Nexus 10 tablet and its 1.7GHz Exynos 5 Dual 5250. Our first impression? The 5420 ran GLBenchmark's 2.7.0 T-Rex on-screen test noticeably (read: a lot) smoother than the Nexus 10 and the final scores confirmed the performance boost that we previously reported. We also had a look at both the Unreal Engine's Citadel (up to 45fps at times) and Unity Chase on the test device with both further demonstrating silky smooth transitions and brisk graphic renders. There's no word on when the chip will make it into your next mobile device, but it is scheduled to go into production next month. For a quick look at the two tablets side by side, we'll refer you to the video embedded just beyond the break.